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Searching for WIMPs

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WimpyStrangely enough, “wimpy” was early 20th century British slang for a hamburger, which somewhere in the 1930’s became American slang for an ineffectual person, to the consternation of the OED. My kids, courtesy of Dollar Tree, have been exposed to pre-WWII Popeye cartoons, in which a character named “Wimpy” has a British accent and an addiction to hamburgers. He also accomplishes a lot while appearing quite ineffectual, getting Popeye to do all the hard work for him. If we view Popeye as a stereotype for the US, many of these pre-WWII cartoons can be reinterpreted as complex political commentary. Commentary that now extends to cosmology and astrophysics.

When cosmologists could not explain why galaxies formed out of the the hot gas of the Big Bang, they proposed a mysterious “dark matter” that was attracting the gas and making stars, but was itself invisible to telescopes. Two possibilities presented themselves: the matter was invisible to telescopes because it was “dark”; and the matter was invisible to telescopes because it was transparent.

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Comments
Also see the quote from the UXL Encyclopedia of Science in this thread: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/dark-matter-still-elusive/Mung
April 19, 2011
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Robert, are you sure you have a proper understanding of dark matter? From what I've recently read on it, and even from the link you provide, the "presence" of dark matter is inferred based on current observations. It's not something invented to explain something that may or may not have happened long ago.
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that is inferred to exist from gravitational effects on visible matter and background radiation, but is undetectable by emitted or scattered electromagnetic radiation. Its existence was hypothesized to account for discrepancies between measurements of the mass of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the entire universe made through dynamical and general relativistic means, and measurements based on the mass of the visible "luminous" matter these objects contain: stars and the gas and dust of the interstellar and intergalactic medium.
Though the theory of dark matter remains the most widely accepted theory to explain the anomalies in observed galactic rotation...
Mung
April 19, 2011
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"Two possibilities presented themselves: the matter was invisible to telescopes because it was “dark”; and the matter was invisible to telescopes because it was transparent." There is at least one other possibility, unpopular though it is: the matter was invisible to telescopes because it was imaginary.Ilion
April 18, 2011
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